An IndiGo plane from the national capital to Doha was diverted to Karachi airport on Sunday night after a passenger fell ill onboard and was later declared dead on arrival, according to officials. Abdullah, a Nigerian national who was around 60 years old, was declared dead on arrival, the officials said.
The officials said the aircraft A320-271N, which was parked at Karachi airport for nearly five hours, returned to Delhi after the authorities in Karachi issued the death certificate of the passenger and all formalities were completed. An IndiGo spokesperson on Monday said the flight 6E-1736, operating from Delhi to Doha (Qatar), was diverted to Karachi (Pakistan) due to a medical emergency onboard. READ MORE
“Unfortunately, on arrival, the passenger was declared dead by the airport medical team,” the spokesperson said in a statement. Civil Aviation Authority officials at Karachi said the passenger fell ill onboard and the captain requested for an emergency landing at Jinnah International Airport in Karachi.
Doctors from the health department were sent to provide treatment but the passenger had passed away. After the death certificate of the passenger was issued and all formalities were completed, the plane returned to Delhi.
The news provokes a question – why don’t airlines have a doctor onboard? News18 explains medical assistance on flights:
As per reports, there are a couple of reasons why airlines don’t have a doctor onboard:
Cost: The occurrence of a medical emergency vs the number of flights is why airlines don’t have doctors on each flight.
A 2013 New England Journal of Medicine study estimated that a medical emergency occurs once every 604 flights, with 7.3 percent resulting in flight delays. It was also shown that 0.3 percent of plane crises result in death, according to a Bloomberg report. The study, while ten years old, provides an insight into why airlines would not want to invest in such a cost, especially when considering the complicated nature of diversions as well (more on that later).
However, this is compensated by training cabin crew with basic medical emergency training, or by hiring earth-bound medical consultants.
Medical Consultants and Diversions: Paulo Alves, MedAire’s global medical director of aviation health (one such medical consultant company) told the Bloomberg that his organisation employs doctors with vast experience. Only 1.6 percent of MedAire-branded flights are diverted, he said, adding that airlines realise the value in avoiding medics who happen to be on board.
“If the model wasn’t financially appealing to them, they wouldn’t hire us,” Alves explained. “Doctors, they tend to recommend diversions more than we do, because they don’t want to be responsible for the long term.”
Airlines are Also Scared of Jittery Doctors Onboard: We have all seen movies wherein a person falls ill on the flight and a nervous character asks – ‘is there a doctor onboard?’ But turns out, airlines don’t want a doctor onboard, for the simple reason that the air drama often causes nervous doctors to ask for diversions or emergency landings, even in cases where they may not be necessarily needed.
Jose Nable, an assistant professor of emergency medicine at Georgetown University Hospital and co-author of a 2017 paper on in-flight emergencies, told Bloomberg “It’s fairly expensive to divert an aircraft, and so a captain has to take into account a whole host of issues.”
And Perry Flint, a spokesman for the International Air Transport Association airline trade group told Bloomberg in a 2018 report a diversion can cost anywhere from $10,000 to $200,000.
However, medical consultant businesses such as MedAire in the US are based out of emergency departments at medical care centres. When employed, they play an important role in diversion choices. STAT-MD Inc., which provides a comparable service and employs doctors from the University of Pittsburgh, collaborates with approximately 20 national and international airlines. It claims to reduce landings that would otherwise be recommended by frightened and out-of-their-comfort-zone pilots, the report says.
With inputs from PTI
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Source: News18